There’s a vast difference between designing an experience that doesn’t suck and one that drives engagement. We’re good at eliminating frustration. It’s easy to observe whether your customers are unhappy, and then just not do that. But users’ expectations are higher.

Some companies are creating great experiences. From the outside, it looks effortless. But you know it’s not. The user part of you says, Wow, now this is really nice, I get it, in fact, I don’t want to live without it. The designer part of you says, Holy crap, how’d they do that — it’s really hard!

In this presentation, we’ll look at a nifty framework for thinking about and talking about what I call three levels of happy design. Based on research from behavioral economics, hedonics, positive psychology, the importance of adult play, emotion in design, and a whole bunch of other stuff better saved for the talk.